19th July 2007 - Our "Park Tor" Day

Hey today marks our 31 months wedding anniversary! Ok, this is our customary anniversary. Our ROM was 2 years before. OMIGOSH! I have been married for close to 5 years. This coming November will be our 5 years anniversary (ROM)


We set off in our red car. Wanted to go jogging at Botanical Gdns for a healthy start to the day but it was raining on that day, so we ended up setting off at 10 plus.


Our first stop - pig out at Vienna

Afternote: Des kenna food poisoning the next day.







look what I've found at the basement of United Sq


Take a closer look at all the gorgeous hello kitties!


Our second stop - Movies @ Vivo. We watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. We ended the show with a "duh" ....meaningless man. Should have watched Transformers instead.

My last day

So sad to leave an organisation with a very warm and supportive environment. I will definitely miss the days of our steamboat, lunching in makan sessions, the auntie support network, the working mum support network, closet tai tai network and so much more....farewell my friends...it will be a farewell to our working relationship but definitely not to our friendship...

Excitedly awaiting for the launch

2 more working days left

Finished revising the needs assessment questionnaire and sent it over to Boss. 11.30 am , some of my collegues from other centre came. I taught them how to use SPSS to conduct pre and post test for one of their programmes. WHole am gone with these two activities.

PM was spend editing an article on same sex attraction which we are aiming to send for journal publications. Still editing...most likely will finih in a day's time.

3 working days left

I am on half-day leave today. Going to eat high tea buffet @ Equinox with my friends. I brought along my digital camera to snap pics of our outing later, so decided to go around the office, snapping pictures. I took pictures of my cubicle (my first home in office and the most secluded place in the office and had the most privacy), CG’s counter (that is my second home in the office) and the whole office…I forgot the beloved green snake, my favourite resource room and my favourite office corner –the pantry!! That is where I spent my time snacking at 11am and 4pm. Oh no,l how could I forgot…never mind, will snap pics of it with my hp.

Happily clicking the shutter for 10 minutes, I head back to my cubicle, ready to finish up my self mutilation concept paper. 2 hours later, I am done!! Spelling, grammar, expressions all checked! 50 minutes left before I call it a day. So I decide to wander around the office. Not that my office is very big lah..but I decided to take a slow walk around. (ok, the slow walk took me like 3 minutes to finish).

3 and a half working day left

Friday the 13th..argh….hehe..ok..what is on my to do list today..oh my dearest PI for SSWSG is coming in pm, so I better do my self mutilation paper in the am cos when she is around, I cant do my stuff, I have to cater to her sighings and other things….

So am is spent doing up that as well as gossip…we bought food for lunch today. MH asked auntie to cook the sponsored rice and then she bought ikan bilis, hey bee hiam and cucumber. So we had roast duck, roast pork, MH’s stuff, SH bought sotong, VE bought mixture of things and SL bought grapes. Pm, my PI came in with a sexy top..haha..i love to tease her..she is so cute…she was tortured and tormented by the PC the whole PM.

Here's my darling

To go or not to go

Desmond tendered his resignation on Tuesday and received a counter offer to be based in his UK office. I received this piece of news with mixed feelings. Last time I always wished that he could be posted there so that I can really be a full-fledged tai tai – study my PHD and not work. But now, I am not sure. Not sure because I will be starting my new job soon ( I am so looking forward to it), not sure because now we have Isaac to consider (although his education will not be a problem cos he will not start school so soon and hey, his ang mo looks will fit in there pretty well), not sure cos we have to decide what to do with our house, our car (guess will sell our car and rent out our house), not sure because what will happen to his new job offer (??), not sure because how will his total compensation package be like?
He will still be required to fly around but that will be around Europe state – meaning I will get to fly with him too but I will be left all alone to take care of Isaac, no mummy to give me support, can I do it?

4 and a half working day

It WAS a busy day for me....

Morning was spent writing up the concept paper for self mutilation. I chose a title for the paper - Journey into the minds of youth self mutilators. What do you think?
Discussed with Boss and decided that the best approach to the self mutilation study will be to 'source' for self mutilators amongst our three centres and not have a general study on the phenomenon in our schools becuase of ethical considerations. Although i believe that doing a general study would be interesting to see what the findings will yield..anyways in research, we always have to balance between interest and feasibility of the study. Guess in this case, the ethical issue was really too important to ignore it.

Ok, left office at about 12 plus with Boss to attend a needs assessment meeting with one primary school in the North. We decided to go and have lunch at Casuarina Road before the meeting at 2pm. we went to this Japanese Family restaurant - Tamoko. delicious and cheap. We had salmon sashimi, ebiko maki and 2 bowls of katsu don...all for a mere $23.60 (for 2 pax). Cheap right? (Hey, Porkie decided that besides doing reviews on skincare and cosmestic, I will also do restaurant and food reviews, check them out at my other blog -http://www.zhupa.multiply.com)

Discussion at the school was ok. School's rather pleased with our proposal and not much changes to be done to the questionnaire. Well done, POrkie!

Back to office at about 4 plus. Can't do much work cos I was too tired and hot from the journey back to office. Decided to do brainless filing work and packing my table. Porkie cannot work with messy table..unlike my colleague..boy, you cannot see her table leh...(* for those colleagues reading my blog, I bet you all know who yah? No prozes for guessing)

Fancy some home made beauty tips?

I was rummaging through my bottles of skin care when i stumbled upon Isaac's bottle of olive oil. There is still 3/4 of the bottle remaining. What shall I do with it? A quick search in the internet yields the following results:

Makeup Remover. Out of eye makeup remover? Not a problem. Dab a little olive oil on a cotton swab or tissue and smear away. It even removes waterproof mascara just as efficiently as the store-bought variety. You may find you love it enough to buy a cute storage bottle so you can keep it in the bathroom rather than dragging the big container out of the kitchen every night.

Skin Moisturizer. In a pinch, olive oil makes an acceptable moisturizer. In fact, there’s an entire line of skin care based on olive oil, so don’t be embarrassed to make your own homemade moisturizer from it. Use it straight from the bottle before bedtime on clean skin for an overnight treat, or blend it with a bit of face lotion for a diluted version.

Hair Conditioner. Olive oil shines at this, and so will your hair. Heat up a half cup in the microwave with a bit of rosemary (which stimulates the scalp). Comb it through freshly brushed hair and either let sit or, for a deep condition, wrap hair in a warm towel for 15 minutes. Then wash as usual. Beautifully soft, shiny hair.

Cuticle Treatment. Warm a bit of olive oil and rub into your cuticles. Let sit a few minutes till skin softens, then push back with an orange wood stick. Presto quick nail beauty.

Skin softener. Add a few drops in the tub along with your bath bubbles and a little baking soda for a great soak that your skin will readily absorb. Soft legs in a relaxing flash.

5 and a half working days left

Ok, today is the start of my counting down. My last day in my organisation will be on 20 July 2007. My plan for today is to finish my data analysis for an evaluation study for a group work and to commence on the self-mutilation concept paper.

Very excited as I ran the analysis for the evaluation study. My heart was pounding very loudly. I pressed the ‘run’ function gingerly in SPSS, I did not dare to look at the output table that popped out almost instantaneously. The output table flashed urgently at my screen, as if it was screaming at me, calling for attention. Taking a deep breath, I scrolled down and peered at the table with one eye closed. You guys must be thinking that porkie is one crazy pig. It is only data, why get so excited? Well I guess this is why I love research, it gives you the kick and sets your adrenalin pumping. The feeling is so so SHIOK!! Ok..ok.., back to the data analysis….

I was expecting that the results will not turn out positively since I had to discard quite a large number of outliers. Contrary to my expectations, the results were encouraging. The youth showed improvement in all aspects that we sought to measure. That was good news and definitely very encouraging for the social workers running that group work. Ok, end of my first two hours of work in office.

Next, I had to prepare appreciation letters to send out to the various panel members of a research study. This marked the end of the one and a half year long research study on SSSWSG. This is a real painful study.

My afternoon was spent writing up the self-mutilation concept paper. Not very difficult to write because I had done the background literature review. Although I had all the information needed, the paper is taking a rather long time to take shape. Maybe because my mind was groggy from the cold that I am nursing, maybe because my train of thought was constantly interrupted from the endless phone calls that no one in the office seem to be picking up, apart from SH and CG.

Hard facts of life - Learnings from the fate of a pig

一号风球

最近的天气状况不太好。每一个地区都在刮大风。 可能只有义顺风平浪静。后港和金文泰被台风袭击，简直是被攻击的乱七八糟。看吧，我的预料是还会更多的变动。大风吹，吹呀吹

Brainless pics in Des's car - part 2

Say Chez!

Brainlesss pics in Des's car

See my pimples?

Pig stuck in sty

I am too comfortable, too contented in my little cubicle, in my comfortable office, tuck under a block of flats. Just like a frog in the well …hmm..i dun like frog, I love pigs. So, maybe I should be a pig stuck in her sty. Hiak! I have not been reading as much as I should. I lost touch with international newspapers like Asahi Shimbun, IHT, etc. Must start to read them again. Newspapers, magazines and books…they are all great repositories of knowledge!